


The Squire's Daughter and the Sawbones

by oonaseckar



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Georgette Heyer - Freeform, Regency, Regency Romance, austenilia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-29 16:27:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19404094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar
Summary: Sir Merry is a sour-tempered grasping selfish invalid, his daughter a hopeless martyr, and Dr Parritt isn't as obliging and good-natured as he might seem.





	1. A Storm and a Doctor's Visit

**Author's Note:**

> Regency romance.

“Heavens, my girl! What folly to be coming out in such weathers as this! What in the Lord's name must you be thinking of, to be so very headstrong and incautious, when it's been blowing a gale and setting fair to drown us all this past two hours? What on earth can merit it?” The manner of speaking of Mrs Lowbones, housekeeper to Dr Parritt, was perhaps not the most seemly and respectful, addressing as it did the daughter of the local squire. But she might be excused for thinking that, well, _she might be excused._ On the one hand, she'd known the girl – Helen, daughter of Sir Merry, a fine girl of two and twenty, hale and strong and clear of eye, fair and blue-eyed as any Nordic maiden – for most of her life, and the odd liberty was no more than any old retainer might expect to get away with regarding the local gentry. And into the bargain, the girl had just galloped into the yard of Dr Parritt's weathered old homestead, quite as if Cerberus or the Furies were after her, and flung herself down from her horse as if to bust her brains out on the cobbles beneath her, almost tripping her booted feet on the cloak she was wrapped up in against the rain. It was abrupt, and startling, and Mrs Lowbones had just been knocked up out of a warm kitchen where she'd been sat drinking a glass of porter and gathering moonbeams, by the stableboy who'd seen Lady Helen coming and run out to greet her and open the gates.

Yes, she might be excused a little over-familiarity, she couldn't help but think.

And Helen – who did not at all insist upon her honorary title amongst those she'd grown up with, in their little Cotswolds village bordering upon an almost equally tiny market town – took not the least offence, Lord love the girl. Perhaps she was in fact too breathless and mind-tossed to do so. “My – my – apologies for knocking you up, Mrs Lowbones,” she gasped out, blue eyes wide and apologetic, even as she gasped for breath. “I don't in the least desire to inconvenience you, and it pains me greatly, except that my father is taken severely ill, and I must ask you to rouse Dr Parritt, if he is abed, and if he is on the premises. Is he on the premises? For if he is not,” and here her eyes swung back to her horse, a fine proud steed bought cheap at auction, on account of it having a temperament a bit too fine and fiery for its previous owner, and just barely held in check by the Squire's daughter (herself a bit of a fiery one, on occasion.) she halted a moment, and Mrs Lowbones could understand it. The stableboy, standing holding the head of the lady's horse by the reins, rolled his eyes and cried out, “Oh, no, Miss!” in horror at her clearly proposed course of action.

“Well,” Lady Helen said resolutely, “in that case I must just set off for wherever the good doctor has gone off to treat a needy patient, and bring him back to attend upon my father. So, Mrs Lowbones...” she went on, clearly about to enquire again as to the whereabouts of the doctor himself.

And Mrs Lowbones had only a moment to bless herself, and to thank heaven fasting that the man himself was indeed in the old house, even he was abed this past hour and she'd have to wake him up from his well-earned rest in order to wait upon Lady Helen's father. Because that moment was passed, and the creak behind her was the creak of the kitchen door, off-camber and off-true, being pushed out wide, as the master leaned out into the dark and the rain with a lamp held out, peering out to see the assembled three more clearly. He was clothed in the nightshirt that he'd retired to bed in, tired from a day tramping around the local farms and bandaging up careless farmhands, delivering babies and dosing up sick children suffering coughs and croup. Pulled around it was his good navy dressing gown, and on his feet a hastily donned pair of gumboots. Thus, the attire of a medical man who'd thought that perhaps this night might be one of those where Lady Fortune was favourable, and he got to sleep the whole night through undisturbed.

“Doctor P!” she said thankfully, for the good woman's heart had sunk at the prospect of having to drag him up out of his rest for yet another emergency mercy dash in the middle of the night. Not because the poor man was ill-tempered upon being roused, not even in the middle of the night and when it was the third time in a week. But in a way, precisely because he did bear with the trials of being the only country doctor in a small and close-knit community with such forbearance and charity of spirit, that it seemed unfair and unjust to visit upon him yet another such chore, when he was tired and ill-rested and overworked already.

Although considering it was Lady Helen doing the asking, perhaps he might regard it a different light to the usual stream of invalids and farming injuries that he saw day after day after day (and sometimes night after night.)

“Why, Helen!” the good doctor exclaimed, taking one step off the hearthstone of the kitchen door, and then another, closer towards them. Or perhaps more accurately, closer towards her. And then he visibly paused, hesitated and corrected himself. “My apologies, Miss Helen. I mean to say, Lady Helen. But how may we help you, my lady? What brings you here at this hour of the night? I hope that your good father...”

Here he paused again. An untutored bystander might have said, that it was rather as if Doctor Parritt was not entirely certain exactly what manner of thing he wished upon the Lady Helen's father. Fortunately, he was not required to finish his thought and determine his wishes on that matter prior to dealing with the matter at hand, for the lady Helen continued his thought for him. “My father, sir, precisely, it is on that head that I have come to disturb your slumbers, for which I must beg a thousand apologies.”

But the doctor immediately brushes this aside. “No, no, my lady, please don't think it a trouble, for any service I can do you I am now and always only too pleased to do. You must know that.” He hesitates. “You must still know that.”

Lady Helen flushed, and it would have been a pretty sight in a less murky light, on her fair complexion and staining her smooth cheeks the same raspberry shade as her lips. “I thank you,” was her only acknowledgment of his declaration. “But still I regret the necessity of disturbing you – and especially for this. If my father were not so sick, then I would wait until morning and ride to consult with Doctor Greyhall over in Stoversleigh, I do assure you. Not that he is half the doctor that you are, I know,” she hastened to add, fearful of giving professional offence. “But he will do well enough at a pinch, and is a good man, and between him and my father, well,” she says, and flushes. Then resolutely goes on, “He is someone my father has never insulted nor offended, on a professional or personal level. Which makes him fairly unique amongst all of the professionals and tradesmen in the surrounding towns. But especially in comparison to yourself. I still feel very badly, sir, I feel I can never apologise enough for the insults my father has levelled at your head, I feel that no proper recompense can be made you...” And she tails off as she clutches and worried at her shawl, awkward and unable to meet his eyes.

And it seemed to the Doctor that something required correction here, that the lady had nothing to reproach herself with. But there was a more urgent question at hand, and he took a few steps closer to her, nodding at the boy as he calmed the whinnying horse, disturbed by the rain and the storm and the emotion around him. He was getting wet enough himself, and it mattered not a whit. “Tell me what's wrong with your father, my lady,” he advises, simply. “And do it quick, before we're all down with bronchial spasms from the mist ourselves. And then'll I'll ready, and we'll away.”

Lady Helen looks at him, straight and true, because that's the only way she knows how to look at anyone. “I think he may be dying.”


	2. Scrooge hath nothing on this fella

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor sees the Squire.

With the Lady Helen ushered into the house, where it was at least warm and dry, if a little dark and musty while Mrs Lowbones lit the lamps and set the fire re-lit and blazing, the doctor searched about for his bag and implements. And meantime the stableboy brought both her own horse and the doctor's mount, Proudboy, around to the main gate for them. As Doctor Parritt reappeared, solemn-faced and with his greatcoat slung around his shoulders, doctor's bag ready at hand and a slew of papers under his arm, Lady Helen stood up from her temporary perch by the kitchen fire to greet him again. Mrs Lowbones had foisted upon her, despite her protests, a glass of Madeira, and it had put a little colour in her frozen, whitened cheeks, but her eyes were still wide and distressed.

“Oh, Richard, I am so glad to have you come to see how he is – and yet I still feel I should apologise, that you are the very last person I can come to with a matter of this nature. I should have found any other option, any other person who could have helped or found help sooner!”

But the doctor took precious little notice of her distress, merely patting her hand on his way to the door: and firmly taking her elbow and leading her with him. “Fretting'll do your father no good at all, my dear. Come, let's have less of play-acting dramatics, and go find our steeds. We must be away and off through a fair dark night, to see your father. It's not as if he's going to be best pleased to see me: I'd as soon swallow a bitter spoonful of medicine sooner rather than later. Let's be away, my dear.”

And Mrs Lowbones waved them away at the wide kitchen door, muttering, “Quite right, quite right, my loves. Dreadful old man: he gets no good wishes from me.” Mrs Lowbones's ears weren't what they had been in years past, and no doubt she imagined herself quite discreetly inaudible in her rather frank opinions. But the pithy opinon only put a brief smile on Lady Helen's face, wiped away by the seriousness of her situation. She knew well enough how well her father was widely regarded in the county. Or rather, not.

And then they were away, round the side of the house and saddled up in the stableyard, and away into the rain and the dark and the night.

xxx

Arrival home to the squire's house was less daunting than visiting the doctor's humbler home had been. It was still all lit up, every wick in the place burning away, and her father's manservant leaning out an upper window, scowling down as he noted their arrival and no doubt passed the news along to her father. (Of course they'd no housekeeper to provide a warm welcome, hot toddies all ready and a good fire burning. Not since her father had quarrelled with the last one, and prior to her with the one before that.)

So it was left to Helen herself to take the doctor's coat, to offer him refreshment before he went to see his patient, to make him welcome. She disdained to knock up the maids to do the job: hardly fair upon them to saddle them with extra tasks outside of daylight hours, when the Squire was a difficult enough man to serve even between dawn and dusk, and assuredly ran them ragged half the time, without so much as a thanks to sweeten such a pill as he was.

But she was unsurprised to have the good doctor refuse all refreshments beyond a cup of water, in his haste to see and assist his prospective patient. It fit in well with his reputation in the county, which is some way beyond that of a dedicated professional and a feeling, compassionate and skilled doctor, and to some degree more faithfully resembles that of a saint or angel, sent down by a compassionate god to relieve the agues and ailments of all the poor suffering folks of the surrounding county.

But the Lady Helen knew that he was in fact at least as much a man as a saint. And that was half of the reason they were in such a pickle of awkward civility with one another in these more recent days.

But she put such matters out of her mind and accompanied him up the great sweeping staircase of the rickety, ill-kept manor house the family haf inhabited a good seventy or eighty years or so, in which it was easily the most distinguished and impressive feature, if not the one in the best state of repair. It creaked as they hurried up like a great old ship fighting against a storm at sea, or as if a host of the Squire's family ghosts were only waiting in the wainscoting to leap out at them wearing their doublets and ruffs most roguishly, waggling their chains and their hair wild.

But no such spectres lurked to enliven their return, or at least if they did then they made precious little fuss about it. Indeed apart from the howl of the storm without, and the creaks of the floorboards within, there was a distinctly awkward silence to be perceived by any eavesdropping ghostie near at hand. The Lady Helen had to be credited with at least attempting to alleviate it. As they hurried along the upstairs corridor towards the master bedroom belonging to her esteemed father, she put on a little burst of speed to keep pace with Doctor Parritt, coasting at his elbow and turning towards him. Her pretty rose-petal lips were perhaps not quite steady.

“It's too long since you visited us here at the manor, sir, and a fair way too long since you were invited. I mean – I mean in the purely social sense, you know. You know, I hope, that it is not by my choice that this household should be guilty of any such omission of civility?” \her pretty face was worried. And the flush over her face that the wind and the rain during their ride had whipped into it, spread even over her nose as well as her cheeks, giving her a slightly anxious and rabbitty air that was very endearing to anyone to whom she was already, well, dear.

So he gave her a reassuring smile, and a pat to the hand that was a little more stiff and formal than it had ever been in erstwhile days. “Helen, I think I know you too well to ever think that,” he said. And if the slight constriction of the muscles around his eyes the instant later suggested that he regretted the impulsive informality, well, there was nothing in the lady's face to suggest she was anything other than pleased by it.

But they had no time for apology, correction or reassurance, for her they were at the door of the master bedroom, and what could that sound within be, but the sound of an aged old fellow groaning in the straits of the most dire sufferings and agonies that mortal flesh is heir to, mortgaged out and falling apart as it might be. Lady Helen was a little to the fore: and though she looked as though she'd as fain call halt right on the spot and initiate a thorough discussion and post-mortem of the past six months gone and perhaps freewheeling further back than that even.

But her father groaned again, and if she was anything then she was a girl who knew her duty. Before the doctor could reach to do it, she pushed at the door. It opened upon a scene of disruption, disrepair and _deshabille_. The old Squire, Lady Helen's widowed father, was laid abed in his great fourposter, a nightshirt on his back and a nightcap on his scrawnily white-haired old head, pushed up against a bank of pillows with a sour expression upon his leathery old face.


	3. terminal hypochondria

And by the looks of him as he beheld them, his temper wasn't any the sweeter for seeing the doctor, whatever his current condition. And perhaps the Lady Helen into the bargain. Pulling the covers up to his chin and looking suddenly a trifle more weary and ethereal, he said, in a faint voice that might have died away into the ether at any moment, “Well, if it isn't the good doctor,” he observed, and keen ears couldn't miss the lacing of sarcasm in the words. “And here I'd thought I'd not survive the night, dead in my bed before you were ever done talking sugary indecencies and love-poetry to my girl, there. While she forgot her duty to her father and stood flirting and mithering, instead of remembering where her duty lay and looking to her guardian. Still, you're here now, and I'm not dead yet. Have at it and see what you can do for me, doctor, for I'm a sick man and no doubt not long for this world.”

the good doctor might scarcely have been blamed – given the peculiarly awkward circumstances – if he had chosen to respond with an observation that it was a piece of good luck for the world, then. But he did not, and his reputation in the county for beiug a gentlemen possessed of great restraint and judgement, was thus upheld. Perhaps his reserve was only due to the Lady Helen drawing closer and interjectnig herself, though. For the good doctor was ever the gentleman and inclined to give way to a lady in both the muddy lanes of the local town and in conversation. “Father, I do think very much that if anyone can ease your ague, and the contractions of your - “ And here the lady flushed, for many aspects of a medical man's daily duty must be disagreeable and embarrassing for a gently-feared maid of refined sensibilities to consider. But the Lady Helen proved the doctor's mental gallantry unworthier, and herself of hardier stock than he'd slipped up in supposing. “Your lower parts, sir. Then Doctor Parritt is the very one to do the trick. And,” she said, all slipping out in a rush much as if a river had broken its banks, “I hope very much that you will offer him all due civility, and we will not be shamed in this house by ingratitude to a professional gentleman who has been knocked up in the middle of the night from his own slumbers and yet has very kindly offered his services to – our family, for the relief of distress. And now I will take myself downstairs and prepare you a possett and Dr Parritt a brandy, since you thought a possett might ease you, and no doubt a warming toddy will help stave off any chill the doctor may yet contract.”

And she swept out of the bedroom, the magnificent Lady Helen, with her little chin jutted out quite defiant, all of her trim little figure embodying determination and implacability. Perhaps it cost her something, to so admonish and defy her only remaining parent: her lip trembled a little, visible. Dr Parritt knew to his cost that such defiance wasn't something that came easily or habitually, and to have it displayed on his behalf, out of a personal concern for his well-being, touched and warmed his heart.

Of course, it was also a girlish little flounce and exit that left the good doctor quite alone and defenceless with Sir Merry the squire. (The least well-named of any obstreperous old coot within his practice, Dr Parritt privately thought, and he had many and various as patients, sad to say.) Of course, Sir Merry was an invalid, a sick old man, quite defenceless and not at all a lion to be bearded in its den. Or such was something he'd frequently had to remind himself of previously, since moving to this parish two years previous and taking up medical responsibilities for a quarter of the impoverished constituents of the county.

Of course, Sir Merry was possibly dying, which perhaps made him somewhat less of an intimidating opponent. Although the fact that Dr Parrish, for the sake of frankness and honesty, felt compelled even mentally to append that 'possibly' to the description of Sir Merry's state given him by the squire's daughter, no doubt said much.

And now to the patient. Dr Parrish approached the great shabby old four-poster, with a welter of blankets huddled up anyhow around a living bundle of bones. “Well, Sir Merry,” he greeted the older man, “I'm here and willing to do what I can for you. Can you describe to me what it is that ails you, and then with your permission I'll undertake a full examination and give you my professional opinion.”

And at the invitation, that sour old face was as close to good-tempered as any it was capable of. For as the surrounding county well knew, there was nothing that the sour old fellow liked better than a long and detailed disquisition upon every ache and pain that the good Lord had visited him with – and what a saint he was in putting up with each and every one, and how little of a comfort his dratted simple-minded incompetent daughter was, in nursing him.

Most of the surrounding county had their own opinions on that subject, but they kept mighty quiet about them, at least in his presence. And now, Dr Parritt had all the joy of hearing about his latest bout of life-threatening ague and palsy and the grippe. It must have been a great joy, to a learned medical man, to have so interesting a case continually demanding his services. Or at least, doing so up until the point of the sad break in good standing and cordial relations between the professional man and his patient, and the instigation of a good deal of bad feeling. Since then Sir Merry had been calling over Dr Howles from the next county for all his ails and ills, and one can only suppose that Dr Howles blessed the good Dr Parrish for his increase in business.

Now, there was no mention of Dr Parrish's rival, and no more than vague, sneering hints alluding to the squire's withdrawal of business up until this night. Dr Parrish could onlyh suppose that Sir Merry knew very well what Dr Howle's stated opinion was upon the subject of night calls to patients, even supposing a messenger could be found to make the request at double the distance from the old mansion to Dr Parrish's door. And perhaps, several months on from the initial break in relations, the old man felt that Dr Parrish had been sufficiently punished and chastised, and might be offered once more the patronage of the local gentry without fear of him getting above himself, ideas above his station and entirely too much familiarity with the only support – inadequate as it might be – of Sir Merry himself in his ailing old age.

And, once he had received the very fullest account of all the ills that flesh is heir to with regard to the local squire, Dr Parritt requested permission to run through a few basic tests and examinations, to take his survey of Sir Merry's physical condition and give his professional opinion. It wasn't the first time that he'd run through the whole pantomime with the old man. (It wasn't even the first time he'd been obliged to do it in the middle of the night.)

But always previously before, after solemn looks and a serious approach to the process, a careful account (with note-taking) of Sir Merry's rambling list of his complaints and his ailments – often one and the same thing – he'd had reassuring words for the invalid. True, Sir Merry often treated these as a mere sop to stop up his complaints like a cork, and an insult to his comprehension and intelligence. But still, they formed a part of the dance between an habitual maliingerer and his medical professional, and to have them sidestepped must have given him much the same sensation as if he'd been engaged in a country dance and his partner, instead of skipping in his direction at the prescribed and conventional moment, had instead chosen to fling herself headlong out the glass of the drawing room windows and eject herself into the pond.

(Which was much the course of action that Dr Parrish, in his secret heart, might have prescribed to any lady unfortunate enough to find herself with her dancing card marked by Squire Merry, however unlikely the scenario.)

Now, however, Dr Parrish himself stood in place of that unfortunate lady in the midst of a dreadful Scottish reel, at least speaking figuratively. And indeed, he seemed not minded to take Squire Merry's hand and meekly tread a measure with him, as expected and required. Where were the words of reassurance, the careful – and tactful – minimising of a hypochondriac aristocratic old snob's woes and fretful complaints? Nowhere to be found in this bedchamber at least, it seemed. Never before, in all of his history of interesting medical complaints, and a year or three of Dr Parrish's residence in the surgery of the local town, had Sir Merry had such a response to a tale of suffering and woe from the good doctor.


	4. “Everybody's going to be dead one day, just give them time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a quote by Neil Gaiman.

Dr Parrish has never sat back on his heels, sucked in a sharp, considering breath, and shaken his head. Not at Sir Merry. Nor found it difficult to meet his patient's eye, and cast troubled looks about the room instead, as Sir Merry presses him for a verdict, a diagnosis and a prescription. (Perhaps for his favourite invalid's prescription of all, for complete bed-rest and the absolute necessity of having someone available to tend to his every need and fulfill each and any whim he might take into his head – to wit, the poor Lady Helen, since servants come and go and one may push them just so far and no further.)

And yet, here was the doctor, with a sour gloomy expression his face, and even shaking his head, slightly but discernibly enough. Enough for Sir Merry to take him up on it, with a note of real alarm in his voice. (The doctor had never seen him truly alarmed before. It was everyone around him who was sent scurrying and hurrying, panicking over his imminent demise and drastic symptoms, hens running around the hen-house and catering to the cock of the walk.) “Well, sir, d'ye have no answers in that big black bag of yours, then? For what did ye parents go to the trouble of sending you off to the great teaching hospital in Edinburgh, then, if you've nothing in yer brain-pan to solve a case with and cure a sick man?” The querulous note sounded a little thin and cracked: as if panic was bubbling up beneath it, and it was shifting around on top like a saucepan lid unsteady on a boiling pan on the hob.

The good doctor knew what was expected of him, and normally it was his practice to humour a sick patient, to follow the prescribed dance and the expected steps before giving the final verdict. Here was where an anxious reassurance was required, to be met with his patient's exasperated protests of never being believed, of being scoffed at and mistreated most unfairly.

But instead, the doctor shook his head slowly, and tutted a little under his breath. “I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, my lord,” he said, solemn as a judge. “But it's not good news.”

It was a dramatic delivery, low-key but well-judged. The doctor was a great theatre-goer, and perhaps flattered himself that his delivery owed a little something to Sir Charles Hawtrey in Sheridan Whatever the rights of that judgement, it had its effect upon the recipient. Sir Merry went quite white, when previously his age-yellowed tint had been healthy enough for one of his age and indoor-reared habits, and only suggested one who probably would benefit from a months healthy farm-labouring and a strict diet.

It was instructive to witness the rapid journey of a hypochondriac faced with real illness and the prospect of becoming an actual invalid, as a matter of the least worst scenario. The doctor had never encountered anything less than a haughty lecture and a superior smirk from Sir Merry. Now, though, it seemed as if he was the sour old gentleman's only support in a time of trouble. Now, Sir Merry clutched like a vice at his hand, and beseeched him. “There's nothing you can do for me, Doctor? Are you sure? Why, this is dreadful. And to think of my poor Helen, left all alone in the world with no-one to guide her, or to protect her from the pack of fortune-hunters who will undoubtedly descend when I am gone! Oh, woe, Doctor, woe!”

Cripes, but he was larding the pudding-dish rather excessively, surely anyone would have thought. But Doctor Parrish's patience had seen many years' honing at this point, and he patted the old man's claw with his one free hand, solemn, impassive, but with a trace of sympathy on his nice, squarish, not precisely handsome features. “Now, then, Sir Merry, I don't go as far as to say there's nothing to be done regarding the matter. Medical science has reached a wonderful apex in this age, you know! Marvels are daily being achieved by our eminent men of science!”

And Sir Merry trembled with anxious eagerness at this excellent news, and leaned in close to his sudden saviour for the wonderful news. “Don't keep me in suspense, Doctor Parrish!” he pleaded. “It's a terrible strain upon the nerves of a sick man. What drugs, what prescription, what diet and care and spa-treatment do you recommend, to cure what ails me? I am in your hands, Doctor Parrish: entirely at your disposal, and you must consider my pocketbook as your own. Your own, sir!”

Well, it's a tempting offer, for sure. Or it would have been, had Dr Parrish been an avaricious man at all. Which, if he had been, then for sure he wouldn't have chosen to settle in a parish as little genteel or moneyed as this one, with patients who paid him often enough in a butchered lamb for the table or a winter's supply of mangelwurzels. (Mangelwurzel jam was not a great favourite for the doctor: and yet he'd had to learn to tolerate it.)

For now, he shook his head solemnly, and surveyed the crustiest, most sour-tempered patient that he had in his practice, with a solemn look. “It's not that it's a matter of money, Sir Merry,” he explained sombrely. “The treatment is more than a matter of popping the right pill at the right moment, and spending half of one's coffers upon them. No, there's a whole system of living to be applied, and that cannot be administered and correctly managed without professional oversight. It's something that would require constant supervision, a professionally trained expert overseeing your habits of daily living – and completely overhauling them. Why, I think perhaps you could not even accept the changes that would have to be made – would prefer to live with the consequences of continuing on upon your present vein, and never mind the results. Almost anyone would, Sir Merry. It is not a path to be undertook lightly, you understand.”

“No!” Sir Merry's hair was wild, and from his slumped and prone position – sulky, in fact – he was now upright amongst the pillows, wild-haired and flushed of face, and seized at the good doctor's hand to wring it and grab at his attention. “Indeed, Doctor Parrish, you underestimate my willingness to overhaul my entire manner of life, at your instruction! If it is truly necessary then there is no end to the sacrifices and privations that I am willing to endure! If you would only recommend the course of action that you think appropriate, then I would stick to it as rigidly as any sinner seeking a path away up from the gates of Hell!” There was real earnestness in his pink, rheumy, mean little eyes, backed up with a trace of panic, at this point.

And perhaps the good doctor took pity upon him, or merely judged the moment finely and leapt at his opportunity. “Well, sir,” he said, with a weighty and serious expression upon his squared-off, plainish features, “if you're truly dedicated to the venture then perhaps it's worth considering, after all. But you must consider, Sir Merry, and mark me well: half of the cost of the treatments I should recommend would involve the frequent care and attention of a trained medical man – which is where half of the expense would come in. I would be willing to take on the burden myself, but I must warn you that the dent in your coffers would be considerable. ~And not only that, but medical training would be indispensable: none of the duties would be anything I would be happy to pass off to a well-meaning layperson. I think, now, Sir Merry, of your servants. And your daughter. Oh, and with the greatest respect in the world I mention it!” How sincere the Doctor's face was: how earnest.

“Well now, and that'll be no hardship,” the old man said pettishly, pulling his blankets more closely around him. “For not a one of those feckless idle serving girls can make a posset nor set a fire according to instruction. And my daughter, well, Helen means well I do not doubt, but she's no handier than the rest of them when all's said and done. Not that the old girl's any ornament around the place, now that she's getting on in years. But at least she knows her duty, which I've drilled her in with some care, which is more than can be said of her mother. Silly flibbertigibbet, always wasting my money haring off to Bath or down to London, never a thought for her duty to the estate or to her husband.” he sniffed, and fortunatly had little attention to spare for the Doctor's fac.e Which was severe, and a little twisted around the mouth, before he relaxed it. “I made sure to put any such ideas out of Helen's head, soon as she was old enough to be thinking of a coming out,” the wizened little goblin added, and the tone of self-satisfaction was not the most attractive thing about him, bearing in mind that there was precious little competition. “No finding herself a husband and abandoning her father to the tender care of servants and paid hacks.” And then he seemed to recall to whom he spoke, and shifted his gaze away hurriedly to a corner of the ceiling. Then gave a sly glance back in the good doctor's direction, and it was fortunate that Doctor Parrish had re-schooled his features back to impassivity.


	5. “It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a quote from Jonathan Swift.

“Quite,” said the doctor, although it was a little unclear to what he was assenting. “But her lack of skill as a nursemaid will make it all the easier. As your doctor I must advise you that there must be no distractions in your pursuit of health and improvement in your case. Your mind must be focused, your will indistractible, and your hours and minutes entirely devoted to one goal, one only: the regaining and resumption of perfect health and unimpaired active adult functioning. And in this respect, it pains me very much to say...” And here the doctor paused, and it was clear to see how he grimaced, and that indeed he was very much pained. “Indeed, Squire Merry, I do believe that your daughter has the best intentions in the world regarding your health and your peace of mind,” he began, in a circuitous way, setting out in one direction in order to reach quite another objective, transparently enough.

And although the Squire might be accounted by some souls of the parish a knave, there were in fact very few who considered him quite a fool. Or only enough to be fooled for half of the time, perhaps. “Well, perhaps an' she has,” he conceded, with a wily eye bent upon his medical man. “I'll not say otherwise than that she's got a soft heart, though I'm not minded to always class it as a compliment to her. About as soft as her head, I sometimes account her.”

perhaps the good Doctor's lips tightened a fraction upon hearing this judgement from the older fellow upon the only fruit of his loins, the daughter who'd expended the better part of her freshest youth upon pandering to his every whim and nursing him through several of what the self-accounted wise in the surrounding country often described as 'the Squire's so-called ailments'. But it did not stop him from seizing upon the Squire's grudging encomium, and using it to further build his case. “Indeed, just as you say, Sir Merry,” he agreed smoothly. “I cannot in all honesty argue with you. And thus I must flatly state to you, that a sick man cannot afford the slightest irritation or inflammation of delicate nerves long strained by continuous exposure to well-meaingin but incompetent assistance. And this is why I can only recommend to you the services of professionally trained medical and nursing staff. Which will not come cheap, I must advise you again, regretfully!”

In response the old man slapped his hands down on his bony knees, petulant and vehement. “And must I remind you again, Doctor, that money is no object! My guineas will do me little enough good in the graveyard, and my daughter can hardly be so unreasonable as to expect that I'll deny myself essential care for the sake of leaving her a keepsake in gold. If I reach my final gasp a pauper in good health, then I expect she'll still manage to find herself an eligible enough _parti_ – some well-to-do merchant or farmer, well enough considering her age and accomplishments. It's not as if she's still a youngster with the bloom of youth on her, a prune must be satisfied to be stewed and sugared once it's a nice smooth plum no longer. Eh, Doctor?” He rabbitted on with this instinctive self-justification, with seemingly barely the faintest awareness of any laceration it might be to the medical man's feelings, or a lack of tact or indeed self-consciousness on his part. Al the events of the past six months or so considered, and all that.

But the doctor had seemly regained control of his expression, and there naught could be read barring the most polite interest, and perhaps a hesitating querulousness. And yet he forced himself into further admonitions. “Yes, yes, and that's very good, Sir Merry. But what I speak of in fact is how best to dispose of your daughter while I – if I may flatter myself that you'll give over the command of your treatment to me – supervise your care during your recovery. To speak frankly, Squire, it is most unsatisfactory a matter to have unprofessionally qualified individuals, and still less your daughter as you have conceded yourself, lingering and loitering about the place and serving no useful purpose. Indeed, as an active irritant, I must insist – as your current medical advisor – upon the urgency of having undisturbed and sole occupation of your domicile, barring recommended medical care and the nurses I will write you letters of recommendation for. Your daughter, Squire, must be sent elsewhere for the duration, until you are fully recovered. And even then, I doubt I will find myself able to approve a permanent return to her home, but rather perhaps occasional filial visits such as a fond father might require from his only child.”

And perhaps a close observer might have witnessed the tiniest intake of breath on the part of the Doctor, as if he expected perhaps an outraged response, or a suspicious one, to his highly educated and authoritative advice upon the matter. But the Squire's face might perhaps more accurately have been characterised as petulant: quite credulous, perhaps, those of his tenants who misliked him the most might have called it. Or perhaps, simply so tightly focused upon himself and his own concerns, that the motivations and machinations of another would never trouble his mind, fretting and festering it was upon his own woes and injuries, his mistreatments and grievances. “But, Doctor Parrish!” he fretted, thin mouth pulled up vanishingly small in his pursing of it. “I suppose if it's your decree, m'man, then I must abide by it and manage without her: though who else will understand my requirements half so well, now that I've had the training of her? But the other half of the question, Doctor: where am I to send her, for heaven's sake? I suppose I might pack her off to my old cousin Barnaby in Tunbridge Wells: he's a powerful deep scholar, is Barnaby, and I don't doubt he might make use of her in his researches. She takes good dictation and has a nice clear hand, I'll say that much for Helen, and for all she's not such a spring chicken any more, she's still agile enough to go climbing ladders about his library and getting his great heavy old tomes down from the top shelves for him. Aye, that's a good enough plan to dispose of her and keep the place free of her dashed gadfly ways. Silly irritating chit that she is! Very true, doctor, very wise: I can only applaud your wise advice. Now, however, when I think of it, would she be better used and more like to earn her bread with her old governess, who runs a Grosvenor Park academy? Fine woman, you know, Doctor,” he interrupted himself, “a very fine woman indeed, one cut after the pattern of my own heart. Oh, not in an amorous way, I fear that would be a grave misunderstanding indeed!” And he laughed the high, silly laugh that sat oddly with his croaky, querulous crow's caw of a voice, the punctuation that he affected sometimes when aiming for an effect with an audience and was his only concession ever to merriment.

(Doctor Parrish suspected that the Squire considered amusement a decadent and useless emotion, resting as it did upon a basis of goodwill and brotherly feeling amongst mortal souls, and nothing that was likely to either enhance his social standing nor add to his coffers.) “But,” the Squire continued, gone from oddly coquettish to crafty in a blink, “she's a powerful canny woman of business, and will get her pound of flesh out of my good girl. Which means I needn't pay her a penny for her upkeep. Yes, a very neat plan! Thank you, Doctor!”

Perhaps he wasn't quite so pleased, either with himself or the good Doctor, when Doctor Parrish replied immediately – his mouth pulled taut – that, “Very neat, but I must bar is as a solution, Sir Merry! It will not serve as a solution to the issue of what to do with your good daughter - “ and with this train of thought he resolutely continued, despite the Squire wearing a grimace that suggested he substantially misliked being disagreed with on any issue. “Since, Sir Merry, a man's progeny are susceptible to the same ills as the man himself, and preventatives for an ailment may be quite different to treatments for a disease in full flow, it will not do. As your physician, I must insist that your daughter requires quite a different environment to either of those you describe. For maintenance of physical integrity and psychological strength, I heartily recommend an environment conducive to pleasant society, with a great deal of merriment and divertissements, and theatre, public lectures and museum-going in great, unstinting, continuous supply. Such an environment, indeed, as she may find at Bath, taking the waters and attending the public balls. Or, still better, for you to take a house on her behalf in London for the Season – since I think I remember that her original presentation, while her mother was alive, was cut short not halfway through. It was yourself who was taken ill, if I remember the account I have heard aright?”


	6. the hell of your own meanness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a quote from Jane Eyre.

And the Doctor raised a quelling hand, as if he saw perfectly clear the tidal wave of indignation and protest swelling up and demanding expression in his patient's breast. “I understand the potential objections only too well, Sir Merry, believe me. The expense, the indulgence, the fear of spoiling a pretty modest nature with an excess of gaiety and attention. But my expert medical advice, Sir Merry, is that the risk of stinting in this matter is still greater. And not only to the Lady Helen, but also to yourself. For even a long, vigorous, healthy life – such as yours might be restored to – winds at length to an end. And a man hopes, at that juncture, to have the tender care of his nearest blood kinfolk, ministering to his every need. It would be very sad, a very sad thing indeed, Sir Merry,” the Doctor said delicately, “if – well, it is always a tragedy when a man's sprigs of life predecease him, is it not? And leave him to the tender care of gin-soaked nurses, on his own deathbed...”

The thought did appear to give Sir Merry quite sufficient pause to mute him for a moment, judging by the way he blanched like a field-frozen cauliflower and clutched hard at the bedsheets. No man, after all, likes to be reminded of his own eventual, unavoidable mortality. And still less the possibility of one unattended by a single soul to care or witness one's passing from this realm to another. But the Squire was not a man to spend a single guinea unbegrudging, and he protested in a manner that was clearly almost automatic. “But London? The season? Good God, man, even Bath is a matter of foolish foppery and high fashion...?”

“Of course, Sir Merry, as your medical advisor I can only make recommendations too you – based upon my training and expert opinion- and not force you to spouse them. If you prefer to seek a second opinion elsewhere, I shall not take the least offence, I assure you. However I shall find myself unable to treat you further and if you find yourself once more in need of medical attention, I may be obliged to recommend you on to Doctor Wartley over on Sammersley.”

“Nay, Doctor,” Sir Merry hurriedly interrupting him. “I'd as soon not consult any other doctor than yourself:not in the case of a real crisis. I've never had issue with you as a man of medicine, your reputation precedes you.” Indeed it did, and although he was a modest man, the Doctor also knew facts when they were presented to him. He was indeed the best doctor in five surrounding counties, by reputation and in fact. He knew also that the Squire, less than surprisingly, had managed to quarrel with his new doctor, the estimable Mr Bates, and would have had trouble finding any other medical man willing to minister to him, at this point in his history with the profession. (And due to the reputation that preceded him, also.) “Well, Doctor Parrish, if you say it must be so, then it must be so,” the Squire said, sighing heavily no doubt at the thought of the gold that would be passing out of his coffers as a result, and into the eager grasping hands of dressmakers, refined landlords in the fashionable bits of London, and duennas, maids and lord knows what. “But good Lord, it's going to cost me a pretty penny!”

And at that observation, an expression comes over the good Doctor's face, where he sits by the side of the old man in his sick-bed, complete with his nightshirt and wee Willie Winkie hat, looking woebegone at the doctor. It is surely not an expression that could be so very habitual upon that nice broad plainish face, tanned by being out visiting patients all weathers and earnest and kind. It was a good deal more sly, and more calculating and ruthless, than sat comfortably and well-used upon that face not at all designed for it. “Well, Sir Merry,” the Doctor said. And he rubbed his hands, although the room was not cold. Dishevelled, yes, with all the paraphernalia and disorder of the sickroom, and stuffy and shut up for much too long. But not cold, at all: the fire blazed in the little fireplace, indeed.


End file.
